A limited constitutional government calls for a rules-based, freemarket monetary system, not the topsy-turvy fiat dollar that now exists under central banking. This issue of the Cato Journal examines the case for alternatives to central banking and the reforms needed to move toward free-market money.

The more widespread use of body cameras will make it easier for the American public to better understand how police officers do their jobs and under what circumstances they feel that it is necessary to resort to deadly force.

Americans are finally enjoying an improving economy after years of recession and slow growth. The unemployment rate is dropping, the economy is expanding, and public confidence is rising. Surely our economic crisis is behind us. Or is it? In Going for Broke: Deficits, Debt, and the Entitlement Crisis, Cato scholar Michael D. Tanner examines the growing national debt and its dire implications for our future and explains why a looming financial meltdown may be far worse than anyone expects.

The Cato Institute has released its 2014 Annual Report, which documents a dynamic year of growth and productivity. “Libertarianism is not just a framework for utopia,” Cato’s David Boaz writes in his book, The Libertarian Mind. “It is the indispensable framework for the future.” And as the new report demonstrates, the Cato Institute, thanks largely to the generosity of our Sponsors, is leading the charge to apply this framework across the policy spectrum.

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Tag: private university

In his post this morning, “Kagan on Military Recruitment,” Cato adjunct scholar Mark Moller touches on Cato’s 2005 amicus brief in Rumsfeld v. FAIR, which he co-authored when he was with us as editor-and-chief of the Cato Supreme Court Review – a duty he performed splendidly before moving off to the legal academy. In mentioning the brief, however, Mark says that he recalls that the position it took was controversial within Cato, that it might still be, and that Cato’s legal shop might take a different view were the case presented today.

I don’t recall that the position we took was controversial within Cato, but then it was five years ago, memories fade, and much has happened in the meantime, including the filing of a brief just three months ago that nicely complements the earlier position we took. In Rumsfeld v. Fair we argued that the government could not condition a private university’s eligibility for federal grants, as the Solomon Amendment did, on the university’s giving up one of its rights, namely, its right to freedom of association. The law school plaintiffs, citing the military’s “Don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, sought to exclude military recruiters from campus. Pursuant to their nondiscrimination policies, that is, the law schools sought to discriminate against those they thought to be wrongly discriminating. In our brief we took no position on the policy Congress had set for the military (that question was not before the Court), nor on the rights of public universities in this matter – nor did we address the question whether Congress, under its raise-and-support-armies power, could directly order schools to admit recruiters, as the Court ultimately held.

Well we now have the public school version of that issue before us, and the Court, in Christian Legal Society v. Martinez. And our brief in this case, written by Cato adjunct scholar Richard Epstein, argues that a public law school – Hastings, in this case – cannot condition the receipt of benefits it extends to all other student groups on CLS’s giving up its right to freedom of association. CLS, a private student group, excludes nonbelievers from its membership, which is its right. As a public institution, we argue, Hastings must treat all equally.

Thus, the principle in the two cases is the same. Private parties, pursuant to their right to freedom of association, may discriminate, whether we agree with their grounds for doing so or not. Public institutions, which belong to all of us, may not discriminate except on grounds narrowly tailored to their functions. Unfortunately, in numerous respects, that’s not our current law. For more, see here.